every hour has come to this
by katanafleet
Summary: "If I wasn't everything that you think I am—everything that I think I am—would you still want to help me?" He needs to shatter her illusions of his greatness, make her realize that the man she's in love with is nothing more than a man. In the end, he's nothing more than a desperate man who doesn't want to watch his friends die. "What do you need?" she repeats.
1. Chapter 1

author's note: will almost certainly delete to repost when i've finished the rest. let me know how this is - and if any of y'all would like to beta-read it, please let me know, it's insanely long and i'm drowning but having fun anyway 3

* * *

Sherlock Holmes doesn't remember the first time he met Molly Hooper. He assumes it went something like this:

"Hi! I'm Molly Hooper, assistant pathologist at—"

" _Doctor_ Molly Hooper, I should assume, despite the attitude and the overall appearance of _oh dear god what am I doing_." Snarky voice, tone going up and down and down and up. He was very high. Cocaine and heroin. A glorious combination. "You just finished your postdoctoral work and you've just gotten this job at St. Bart's, quite the accomplishment for someone whose mother still doesn't think you'll amount to anything. Congratulations on rising up from your lower birth."

Stifled gasp and sob. Molly pulls herself together. "Detective Lestrade says that you're going to be helping with police investigations—"

And then he usually doesn't think about what he would have said next. It would have been very cutting and very impolite but mostly true, enough to get him dragged out by the scruff by an angry Lestrade. He knows that Mycroft told Molly the next day that he was Sherlock Holmes, resident genius and druggie. She was to ignore him if at all possible but give him free rein of the lab. Molly would have nodded, staring at the British government with no small amount of fear and curiosity.

He remembers the next time they met. She was quiet, too quiet. Lestrade was tense, ready to drag him out at the slightest provocation. He quickly deduced the highlights of the previous meeting and he tried to show off the fact that he'd been sober for two and a half months, something that was probably not as noticeable in him as in most former drug addicts.

He notices her light. Even though she's shrinking into the lab benches like a particularly pretty mouse, she's… glowing. If he were the type to use hallucinogens, he would assume that she was an angel.

Over time, she timidly helps him with his experiments. She accepts him in her lab as if he was automatically supposed to be there. She doesn't think he notices her. That's true, part of the time, especially after he meets John Watson, but she's always there, in the back of his mind.

He compliments her hair to get his way. She introduces him to Jim Moriarty, even if she didn't understand the full implications of that new relationship. (None of them did.) He kisses her on the cheek when he accidentally tears her heart to shreds. She's always there for him, no matter what's going on. That's why he can turn to her with _anything_.

* * *

Sherlock steps into the hallway to the labs at St. Bart's, John right behind him. "Molly!" he says blithely.

She's wearing that strange cherry-printed blouse again. "Oh, hello, I'm just going out." As was implied by the fact that they almost hit each other with the door as they tried to go opposite directions.

"No, you're not." He gently spins her around with a hand to her clavicle.

"I've got a lunch date," she tries, blinking at the sudden turn of events. And the fact that he just physically turned her around, Sherlock considers. A literal turn.

"Cancel it. You're having lunch with me," he declares, adding joy into his tone to inspire his troops.

"What?" He feels her shock behind him, then her slight disappointment when he brandishes the crisps. They're her favorite kind, though, so she shouldn't be too disappointed.

"Need your help. It's one of your boyfriends, we're trying to track him down. He's been a bit naughty."

"It's Moriarty," John says with no small amount of shock.

"Of course it's Moriarty." He grabs the door. Sometimes John can be a bit thick, he muses for the hundredth time.

"Jim actually wasn't even my boyfriend," Molly inserts with a rare show of complete bravery. "We went out three times. I ended it." He's even more in awe of her than usual. Molly Hooper broke up with the greatest criminal mastermind in the world.

He feels oddly obligated to break this bubble of joy. "Yes, and then he stole the Crown Jewels, broke into the Bank of England, and organized a prison break at Pentonville. For the sake of law and order, I suggest you avoid all future attempts at a relationship, Molly." Also for the sake of his own mind. He brandishes the crisps once more and steps through the door.

An unknown number of minutes later, he stares down at the computer, watches the glycerol molecule spin around and around in his head. _What are you?_ Then he looks back into the microscope, acutely aware of Molly standing next to him.

Suddenly she speaks. "What did you mean, 'I owe you'?"

Sherlock glances up at John. He's not paying them any lick of attention. John may have to be renamed "Mr. Oblivious" in his mind palace now.

"You said, 'I owe you.' You were muttering it while you were working."

"Nothing. Mental note."

She keeps talking and being distracting. "You're a bit like my dad. He's dead. No, sorry."

 _Why is she apologizing? She isn't apologizing for anything she's actually done._ "Molly, please don't feel the need to make conversation. It's really not your area." He needs peace and quiet to figure this out and Molly and conversation and her cherry jumper are not helping.

"When he was dying, he was always cheerful; he was lovely, except when he thought no one could see. I saw him once. He looked… sad."

"Molly..." he says warningly. _She_ looks sad.

"You look sad. When you think _he_ can't see you." They both look at John. John is glancing through the pictures of the crime scene, mercifully oblivious to their conversation. Sherlock looks at Molly, who's staring straight at him. "Are you okay? And don't just say you are, because I know what that means, looking sad when you think no one can see you."

"But _you_ can see me."

"I don't count." He stares at her. In the end, somehow, she's the only one who counts, in Sherlock's mind. What's wrong with her and her self-esteem? "What I'm trying to say is that, if there's anything I can do, anything you need, anything at all, you can have me." She smiles, then frowns, then shakes her head a little. She's gone and confused herself. "No, I just mean... I mean if there's anything you need... it's fine." She looks away.

He stutters for the first time since he was ten. "What—what could I need from you?"

Molly looks back at him. "Nothing. I dunno." She thinks about it for a moment, regains a backbone. "You could probably say thank you, actually." She nods encouragingly.

"Thank you?" New words associated with Molly. He logs them in the _Molly Hooper_ room in his mind palace. It's gotten bigger and brighter over the past hours of research.

"I'm just gonna go and get some crisps. Do you want anything?" He tries to say something, anything, to keep her in the room. "It's okay, I know you don't."

"Well, actually, maybe I'll..."

"I know you don't." She dashes out of the room and he stares after her. It's days like this that he remembers he really doesn't understand the human race, and she's one of the highest on the list that he can't figure out.

Then John changes the game with the breadcrumbs and he remembers the fairy tale. They find the children and they save them, just barely in time. They run from the police and they meet Richard Brook.

And Sherlock realizes something, something that he's really known for a long time but hasn't wanted to admit it to himself until now. He needs to die. And there's only two people who can know.

His brother, of course, because he probably can't pull this off without the British government… and _her_.

 _Her_.

* * *

He opens the lab once more, stands in the dimness, waits, allowing himself one last moment of useless drama before the true acting must begin. Molly soon opens the door and steps into the lab with a sigh. She grabs the doorknob and he stops her.

"You're wrong, you know." She gasps and turns around to face him. "You do count. You've always counted and I've always trusted you. But you were right." He turns around to look at her, and he knows his face is a mess of confused anguish.

"Tell me what's wrong." No questions, no concerns. Sometimes he thinks he could lo—What did he do to earn her respect and admiration and… love?

"Molly, I think I'm going to die." Her mouth falls open just a bit and her eyes start to water. What did he do to make her mourn him before he's dead? He's been nothing but terrible to her, for so many years; how could she react so quickly?

"What do you need?" she asks softly.

"If I wasn't everything that you think I am—everything that _I_ think I am—would you still want to help me?" He needs to shatter her illusions of his greatness, make her realize that the man she's in love with is nothing more than a man. High IQ, yes; deductive strength, yes. But in the end, he's nothing more than a desperate man who doesn't want to watch his friends die.

"What do you need?" she repeats.

He stares at her and the glow of her presence. Steps closer. Farther into the light. "You." His voice is gruff and emotional.

What has she turned him into? In this moment, she's made him into a man. Nothing more than a man who doesn't belong anywhere, not on either side of the final battle, floundering toward the side of the angels, of whom she is the brightest. And in this moment, he can't really stop himself. He leans forward and kisses her.

She makes some cute sound of confusion but doesn't push him away. He takes her face in his hands and kisses her until he can't breathe and he's all wrapped up in her. His senses are overloaded with information, but he's muddled and can't understand anything except _Molly_.

Then she pulls away. "What was that?" she whispers.

He pauses. His mind palace is blinking, a blaring alarm telling him of the increased emotions and hormones. "I don't know."

Molly stares at him for a full minute—he counts the seconds—and reads him. She's no great woman in the world of deduction, but she knows _him_. Sometimes, she knows him better than anyone—better than his parents, better than Mycroft, better even than _John_. He watches as she sees his pain and his desire to live. He doesn't yet know how he feels about _her_ but she must see something he can't comprehend. She sees that there's something growing. She reaches up on her tiptoes and kisses him again.

He sighs, the noise pulled from his chest unwillingly, and lets his hands weave into her hair. He feels her hands creep under his coat and he pulls her closer.

* * *

That night, in her bed, their clothes still tossed around the room, once they've regained their breath, he tells her what's going on. Moriarty changing his identity. Mycroft's plan. Sherlock's need to leave and dismantle Moriarty's network. Molly sits up a little and leans her head on his shoulder. He tangles his fingers with hers again.

Why is he _happy_?

His friends are going to die if he doesn't, and he's lying in bed with Molly Hooper after sex, trying not to smile, and whispering about his plans to die like they're discussing their honeymoon plans.

Why isn't he running? Why isn't _she_ running? Why are they still _here_? Why did this even happen in the first place? This whole situation is absurd.

"What do you need?" she asks again. "I assume you need the body of the man who kidnapped the children, just in case Moriarty doesn't die on the rooftop."

"I'm nearly sure Moriarty will kill himself on the roof. Mycroft calculates a seventy-six percent probability that he will shoot himself. I'm putting it at closer to eighty-two percent. But I think it would be wise to have my doppelganger around, just in case." He kisses her forehead.

"I'll need to find the body and that may take a little longer than you want, but I'm sure my security clearance, so to speak, in St. Bart's will be enough to find it," she murmurs. Her forehead crinkles, just a little, and he smooths it out with a gentle touch without thinking.

"Stop thinking," he says, closing his eyes and stretching for a second. "It's too loud."

Molly laughs. A true laugh, not one of her usual inane giggles. He memorizes the sound and places it carefully on a pedestal in her light-filled room in his mind palace. Tonight has really been an excellent night for furnishing that room. "Lestrade said that you told him he was thinking too loudly once."

"Why would he repeat that conversation? And yes, Gary tends to think too loudly and work too hard at thinking. You don't think loudly. You think too much and it's a jumble of thoughts coming at me."

"Greg. His name is _Greg_ ," Molly whispers, walking her fingers across his chest.

He grumbles unintelligibly and pulls her even closer. She giggles again. "What?" he bites out.

"Would never have expected it. The great Sherlock Holmes likes to cuddle."

He grumbles again. He doesn't like to _cuddle_. She's warm. He's cold. He wants to be warm for the first time in his life. He doesn't want to leave. "It's going to happen in a few days. Will you be ready, Molly?"

She nods into his shoulder. "I can get the body in two days, at most. The blood is easy. You're B positive, right? Just for accuracy. Are you bringing your homeless network into it?"

He darts a somewhat surprised stare down at her. "Yes. How did you know about the homeless network?"

"I do notice things, Sherlock." He can practically hear her roll her eyes. "I've seen a lot of homeless people around my flat, and they never ask me for anything. They just watch me and nod when I pass. But you've talked to them and given them money and extra scraps of paper. Not hard."

Sherlock gazes down at her, her face perfectly innocent and sweet. She's _beautiful_. He leans down and kisses her, hard. She laughs when he pulls away. "Irene Adler had one thing right," he muses. "Brainy is definitely the new sexy."

Molly sighs, the barest of smiles on her face. She apparently decides not to pursue that line of questioning—their time, the time they shouldn't have taken in the first place, is far too dear to discuss The Woman—and hums thoughtfully. "What about Mycroft?"

"He's the only other one who will know, aside from you and the network. I have to leave the number as small as possible. He's going to check on the scenarios I've made and make sure they look logical. They do, but he's got to check up on them anyway, apparently," Sherlock sighs. "I'll also have him check up on the remains of Moriarty's network as I take it down."

They lay on Molly's bed in silence for a few minutes. Then Molly sniffles. "What about John, Sherlock?"

"He can't know. It would destroy him—"

"This plan is going to destroy him. He's going to have to mourn you, and he's not going to understand why you couldn't—couldn't tell him that it was a trick, once you get back."

Sherlock pulls away, just a little, so he can see her face better. "You have to keep it a secret, Molly. John Watson, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade—they _can't_ know."

"They can't know that you're going to kill yourself so they can live. They can't know that you're sacrificing yourself to save them—"

"They _have_ to believe that I committed suicide off the roof of St. Bart's Hospital."

Molly groans. "The irony."

"What irony?"

"You're going to jump off the roof of a hospital, and even with all of the doctors and nurses in there, you'll still die. They won't be able to save you. The doctor for dead people is the only one who'll know."

"It's necessary—"

"I _know_ , Sherlock." These are the sharpest words Molly's ever said to him. "I'm going to help you kill yourself—"

"Why do you keep saying it like that? I'm not actually killing myself, and you're certainly not killing me," he says exasperatedly.

"To the rest of the world, you are. To John, Greg, and Mrs. Hudson, you'll be dead. I'm going to be doing your postmortem. I'm going to be proving to the three people you love the most in the world that you're dead. To them, I _am_ going to be killing you."

She says it too calmly. Like she's been processing it for years, the fact that she'd be killing Sherlock Holmes. Doing his postmortem, proving his death to the world, helping him through the final moments—she has been planning this, he realizes. For years, ever since Mycroft told her about his drug addiction, from the day she first saw him as high as a kite so many years ago, ever since she knew what he was capable of doing to himself, she's been thinking about the day he'd die. Whether from drugs or a bullet or falling off a building, Molly Hooper has been remembering that Sherlock is nothing but a man. Barely even a man.

She's always known, somehow, even when he didn't, that it would come to this.

He turns to face her properly and rolls her over to face him, kissing her gently. She responds with desperation, tugging him closer until he can't remember where she starts and he begins. It's the closest he's ever been to anyone, and in that moment, he knows he loves her.

He pulls away when he feels tears on his face, and he holds Molly Hooper close as she cries.

* * *

"I'm a fake."

"Sherlock..."

"The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade; I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson, and _Molly_... in fact, tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes." If he is to die, he will die without dignity, just as Moriarty wanted. He glances back at the body behind him. Blood and brain matter still drip from the exit wound. There's a sudden wave of uncalled-for nausea, and he turns back to John.

"Okay, shut up, Sherlock, _shut up_. The first time we met... the first time we met, you knew all about my sister, right?"

He chuckles. The faith that John has in him. "Nobody could be that clever."

"You could." John's belief in him is overwhelming, just like Molly's. He hears the murmur in his ear, the background music of Molly saving him. The body is ready; the stage is nearly set. The play is truly beginning.

Sherlock stares down at his best friend, recites the lines he wrote himself. The lines of lies that make him into a magician or a monster. "I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you. It's a trick. It's just a magic trick."

John shakes his head, like he's trying to block out what he's hearing and it's not working at all. "No. All right, stop it now."

He's getting too close to the death site. "Stay exactly where you are!" he shouts at John. "Don't move."

"You're right," John says softly.

"Keep your eyes fixed on me," Sherlock demands. He can't hold back the emotion in his voice.

He finally understands what Molly meant. He's not just dying—he's not just saving his friends—he is killing himself. He's forcing Molly to kill him. What is he doing, what is he _doing_ —

"Please, will you do this for me?"

"Do what?"

"This phone call—" he nods, deciding his last words, "—it's my note. It's what people do, don't they? Leave a note?"

John pulls away from the phone like it's burning him, like Sherlock's final words are scalding him. "Leave a note when?" His voice shakes.

 _Go, Sherlock. Now_. Molly's voice in his ear. She'll guide him. Sherlock takes a deep breath. His last words. The final words of Sherlock Holmes. "Goodbye, John."

"No. Don't." John is pure desperation and he shakes his head, willing this to not be true, anything but this. Sherlock takes one last look at John, then he drops the phone. " _SHERLOCK!_ " is the last thing he hears before the wind takes all noise from his ears.

* * *

"Sherlock. Come on, Sherlock, you have to get up, John will get up in a few moments and he can't see you. Please, Sherlock." Molly's voice pierces through the ringing of _SHERLOCK!_ in his ears. That desperate sound will never leave him. He takes one look around before climbing off the inflated mat. Molly stands next to him, her hand ready to catch him.

He wobbles when he stands on the ground again. The mat is deflated and moved. The doppelganger is in place. He glances at the dents in the face, the blood splattered around, but can't change anything because he and Molly have to move.

"Did you account for the proper amount of air resistance according to _current_ atmospheric pressure, not just standard?" he asks Molly as she pulls him away. It's a stupid question—of course she did. She made sure everything was perfect. He trusts her to have made it perfect.

"John won't have to look for long before knowing it's you," she says, tears pouring down her face. "It's okay. I would think it was you until DNA analysis and I'm the—pathologist."

They disappear into the bottom floor of St. Bart's, a windowless room. The homeless network volunteers help John, pull him away from the body. Molly surrounds herself with Sherlock's arms and coat, lets her tears soak into his shirt, and he buries his face in her hair. They have to wait for John to be taken away, probably back to Baker Street.

John's scream still echoes in his ears.

Finally, one of the homeless gives them the okay, and they leave the building hand-in-hand.

Sherlock doesn't remember that night very well. He remembers lying on Molly's bed while she patches up the few scrapes and kissed the bruises he'd gotten from landing on the air bag. He remembers Mycroft stopping by Molly's place to tell her when to check her phone for Lestrade's report of Sherlock's death. He remembers never letting go of Molly's hand. He remembers John stopping at Molly's flat, begging for comfort and reassurance, hiding in Molly's room until John left. He remembers salt streaking down his face when he hears John and Molly crying.

Neither of them sleep that night. Their legs are woven together, their fingers entwined, and their foreheads touching. Molly whispers reassurances, and he tries not to remember that he's a dead man still breathing. _SHERLOCK!_ rings in his ears.

Molly does the postmortem the next day, and he hides in her house. When she comes home she cries again, burying her face in his shirt until he has to push her away just far enough to kiss her. It's only this week. Then he'll leave Molly and become the Consulting Detective again.

He'll cast away Sherlock Holmes and become no one.

* * *

"You need to leave tonight, Sherlock," Mycroft says, sitting in the middle of Molly's couch. He says nothing about Sherlock's hand in Molly's beyond the faint lift of an eyebrow when he first noticed it. "I have a list of Moriarty's known associates, and you need to check up on them. Make sure they're naught but Moriarty's little goldfish."

"I'm going to leave tonight," Sherlock says dully. "Did you get my will made out properly? Must I sign it?"

"Yes, it is made out to your exact specifications, strange as some of them were." He darts a glance at Molly, but she ignores it. Sherlock's hand is shaking again, but he manages to sign the new Last Will and Testament of William Sherlock Scott Holmes. "I will inform your lawyer to order a court summons in a week for the reading."

"Give me the list," Sherlock demands softly.

Mycroft hands him a piece of paper upon which are written a list of names in black pen. Sherlock stuffs it into the pocket of his Belstaff without looking at it. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you—"

Molly clutches Sherlock's hand a little tighter and he nods. "I'll do my duty, Mycroft. You don't need to fear that. Now _leave_."

Mycroft holds his hand out to Sherlock, and he reluctantly lets go of Molly's hand to stand and shake his brother's. They exchange one long look, Mycroft telling him to be careful and Sherlock telling him to watch out for John and Molly.

They promise. Even if they've spent most of their lives hating each other, they're brothers; they'll keep their promises to the end. Even if one of their ends has already come.

He whirls around and kisses Molly, the kiss rougher than he intended but he's leaving her. He's having to leave her behind, to be dead and alone in the world. She'll have to wait for him, to be strong for herself and their friends. Molly wraps her arms around his neck immediately, pulling him closer until all he can see, smell, and sense is _her_. This is how he will survive being dead, these memories. He pulls away as quickly as they surged together, and he walks to the door, yanking it open as he grabs his scarf from the hooks behind the door.

As Sherlock steps out of the door, he watches Mycroft slowly pull a sobbing Molly into his arms. He can leave; he knows this now. _He'll keep her safe_.


	2. Chapter 2

He can't disappear into the good places in his mind palace very often throughout the next two years. That way lies nothing but distraction and hope. Out here, in the real world outside of London, there's no such thing as hope.

One by one, he crosses names off the list. A year passes with little fanfare.

He returns to London when Mycroft calls him. "Sherlock, you have to come back for one day." He pauses for a moment while Sherlock stands at the payphone, waiting for his next words.

"What is it, Mycroft?" he bites out. "I'm only three people below Moran, as you well know. When I find him—"

"When you find Moran, you know as well as I do that more links in the chain of command will be revealed. That will mean you'll be stuck in the chase for months more, without respite. Molly needs you now."

Sherlock stares into nothingness for a moment, the man waiting outside the payphone shifting back and forth on his toes. He's waiting for a call from his girlfriend, either she's pregnant or about to break up with him, he's not sure which, but the chances of breaking up are more likely since this guy lost his job two weeks ago and only told her last night, but at the same time they've been together for three years and they've dealt with this kind of thing before—Molly. _Molly Molly Molly Molly Molly._

"Where is the extraction point?"

He arrives in London four hours later, Mycroft's helicopter leaving him about three miles from Molly's flat. Mycroft had refused to say what was wrong with her, only that she needed him. He opens the window of the fire escape that enters into her bedroom, listening carefully to make sure she's alone before dropping soundlessly to the floor.

He hears her crying. It's not a normal sort of crying, either; it's a desperate sort of wailing that you only emit when your heart is well and truly broken. Against his better judgement, he steps to the living room with far more speed than he should.

She's curled up on the couch with a fuzzy blanket tucked around all but her face. Sherlock feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. _She's been like that for two days_ , the text from Mycroft reads. He glances around the room quickly: two security cameras in the living room alone.

 _Your men were sloppy with the cameras_ , he replies.

 _At her insistence_ , Mycroft says. _She wanted to know where they were herself. I assume you've seen the other one?_

He puts his phone back in his pocket, glancing up at the overhead light, where one of Mycroft's lackeys is probably watching, unbeknownst to Molly. He hates Mycroft's line of thinking, but it'll be useful if something truly terrible happens. He realizes that the crying has stopped. A tear-soaked Molly is staring at him, her eyes glowing even through the tears. "You came back," she murmured.

"Mycroft said you needed me." He can't think of what else to say. He doesn't even know what's wrong, not really. She's crying. That's about all he knows.

Molly sniffs, tries to smile. "Mycroft's been lovely, you know. He checks on me every week. At the beginning, right when you left, he was weirdly attentive. I thought he figured I was pregnant or something, and he was making sure he wasn't going to have to take care of a mini-you too. He eased off a bit when it was clear I wasn't."

He takes a step closer. Admittedly, they hadn't been too careful that night, and he had been wondering if something along that ilk had happened and Mycroft was calling him back to deal with a new mother and his offspring, similarly to the man at the payphone. But apparently not, as he had eventually decided. Mycroft would have called him sooner, he's sure. He hopes. "What's wrong then?"

Molly sighs, shaking. "He shouldn't have called you."

"Molly."

"Your work is too important for you to waste time on me."

"Then _tell_ _me_ what's wrong so I can go back to hunting."

Finally Molly starts talking, throwing the blanket aside and standing up. "I missed you, okay? I missed you so badly I couldn't breathe for the pain. I bet you haven't had days like that, when it hurts to be away so much that you figure you're having a heart attack and have to stay home for a few days to figure out how to breathe again? And when I'm having to deal with your best friend going through a similar thing—" She finally takes a breath. "I don't know how to keep going, sometimes. This time was just worse. I don't know why Mycroft thought I couldn't handle it like usual."

Sherlock stares at her for a moment. She—he— _what_ did he do to make this woman care for him? This shining, perfect, beautiful woman. With those thoughts, he can't hold back. In one step he's only a few inches away, his hands cupping her jaw. "Don't _ever_ believe that I don't care for you, Molly Hooper."

And then he kisses her and she gasps, a shuddering exhale of breath. It's white hot, the fire between them, a fire that even the torturous hunting in Eastern Europe couldn't extinguish. But now, as they're ripping at each other's shirts and sinking down to the couch, _now_ they're home.

* * *

They're lying on the couch a while later, fingers and legs tangled together. "I can't even bring myself to care that we did that" —a faint blush appears on her cheeks— "with two security cameras watching," Molly mutters.

"Mycroft has some sense left, I think. He probably gave them the evening off," he murmurs back. He's giving himself—both of them—these few hours because he has to go back. He has to finish what he started. But for once, he's going to let them bask. They're silent for another few minutes. "You're right, though," he finally says.

"Right about what?"

"I don't have days like you have, where you miss someone so much you hurt with it."

Molly sighs. "I know—"

"If I did, Molly, it would destroy me. You know how my mind works, something like that, letting myself feel that much—I wouldn't survive it. That's what I am, Molly, I'm cold and heartless because I lock everything up."

When he cranes his head just a little, he can see that Molly's smiling, just slightly. "I met you when you were on a drug trip every other day, sometimes every day. And I figured that was the worst of it, until I did see you at your worst. I've only known a few reasons for that many drugs, and the main one was feeling too much. I don't fault you for it, Sherlock. Just… sometimes it really hurts and I want you _home_."

He leans down and kisses her quickly, rests his forehead on hers. "There's nothing I want more than to be home, Molly."

Her smile is worth all of it.

He leaves that night, while she's still asleep. He'd warned her he probably would, just to make it easier and to make sure he was leaving under cover of darkness, what little help it would be. But before he steps out of her bedroom window, he takes a moment to stare at her, wondering and wishing.

His last thought before he leaves is that somehow, somewhere, his frosted heart had begun to melt. And much as he wishes it hadn't, he knows the thawing is as permanent as his memory of Molly Hooper.

* * *

Mycroft, of course, does have more information for him that he cryptically hands over before sending him back to Germany.

"Why did you bring me back?" Sherlock asks as they stand in the private airfield. His hair is reddish and his fake beard is flourishing.

"The intel, of course, brother mine—"

"No, I could have figured all of this out on my own." He hands the envelope back to Mycroft, the information secure in his mind palace. "Would have taken an extra week or so, but you didn't need to give it to me."

Mycroft just gazes at him for a minute. "You are not worth the tears of Molly Hooper."

"I know." He stares back for another moment before turning to the plane.

* * *

He finds Sebastian Moran, the second-in-command, in a little town in Belarus and manages to chain him by the wrists to a ceiling before the man breaks any of his bones. It's then that he relearns the problem of being reasonably large and somewhat invincible—you get cocky. This man hadn't lost his arrogance since he beat up the first kid in primary school.

He's learned the rest of the information he needed to destroy the rest of Moriarty's web in a week and a half of gentle interrogation and he leaves Moran unconscious but alive. He texts Mycroft his coordinates so he can pick Moran up. Both of them had agreed that it wouldn't do for Sherlock to leave a trail of bodies across Europe. The occasional one in self-defense, that couldn't be helped, but even monsters like Moran would have to be incarcerated.

The next year and fifteen days pass without much thought. Sherlock allows himself five minutes every week to think about Molly and John and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade, but then he nails his coffin of a heart back up. That way lies only weakness, he knows. But he has to keep the spark she lit alive, for her. He's doing it for her, only for her. He'll return to London for them.

On the sixteenth day of the second year of his death, he's captured. He's known the Serbians were on his trail for at least a month, but there had been nothing he could do aside from fake his death again, which he really wasn't up for.

So he lets himself get captured, one of the strangest moves of his life.

He's getting the skin of his back ripped open—at no charge to him, what a complimentary stay—and trying to remember the information he's gleaning in between the bouts of consciousness that interrupt the gentle blackness he's grown to love. They've been depriving him of it for days now, hoping it'll break him.

"You broke in here for a reason," the torturer murmurs in Serbian. He's holding that metal pipe again. And his back had just finished clotting, too. Sherlock sighs. "Just tell us why and you can sleep. Remember sleep?"

Sherlock's tired of all of this, so he tells the man about his past. The soldier in the corner asks, "What? Well? What did he say?"

"He said that I used to work in the navy, where I had an unhappy love affair," the Serb says with disbelief.

"What?" the soldier repeats.

The torturer keeps relaying his words. "…that the electricity isn't working in my bathroom; and that my wife is sleeping with our next door neighbor!"

Sherlock takes another glance at the man's shoes and adds another deduction. Who cares if they aren't really true, anyway. Should get the man gone.

"And? The coffin maker!"

The soldier shifts in his seat with interest. Final piece of the puzzle. The _git_.

"If I go home now, I'll catch them at it! I knew it! I knew there was something going on!"

The man runs out of the room, leaving his pipe behind him. Sherlock slumps in the chains, too tired to do anything for a few minutes except breathe. No one is going to check on him, anyway, at least not for another few hours when the lack of screams becomes too curious. The man with the cheating wife had been given full jurisdiction over him.

The soldier stands and Sherlock tenses. "So, my friend. Now it's just you and me. You have no idea the trouble it took to find you." His accent is off. He grabs Sherlock's hair and pulls him up, just a little, and he tries not to groan when he smells Mycroft's cologne. "Now listen to me. There's an underground terrorist network active in London and a massive attack is imminent. Sorry, but the holiday is over, brother dear. Back to Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes."

Despite the pain, despite the horrendous cologne in his nose, despite the hell he's been through, Sherlock smiles.

* * *

"You have been busy, haven't you?" Mycroft says from behind his file. Sherlock puts his newspaper down, trying not to wince as his beaten and broken deltoids protest the movement. It's the first time in two years and four months he's getting a professional shave, and the minuscule scratches on his face are not appreciating it despite the care the man is taking. "Quite the busy little bee."

"Moriarty's network—took me two years to dismantle it." Mum used to call him a little bee, when he was a child. He groans inwardly. He's going to have to see them soon. Dad's going to be mad. Or—more likely—they're going to smother him with their concern.

"And you're confident you have?" Mycroft asks rhetorically.

"The Serbian side was the last piece of the puzzle."

"Yes. You got yourself in deep there. Quite a scheme."

"Colossal," Sherlock confirms. If he didn't know better he'd almost think Mycroft's words were a compliment.

"Anyway, you're safe now." Sherlock makes a noncommittal hum. Mycroft sits back in his seat, as casual as a man searching for a crumb can be. "A small 'thank you' wouldn't go amiss."

"What for?" he asks.

"For wading in. In case you'd forgotten, fieldwork is not my natural milieu."

He struggles to sit up, holding his hand up so that the barber stops the shave. This new beating is going to make his reunions with Molly and John very complicated, depending on whether they decided to hug or punch him. Going to be worth it, though, to see them again, something he never truly thought possible. "' _Wading in_ '? You sat there and watched me being beaten to a pulp." He also never thought this level of sentimentality was possible, he muses.

"I got you out," Mycroft protests as if that's exactly what happened.

"No, _I_ got me out," Sherlock bites out. "Why didn't you intervene sooner?"

"Well, I couldn't risk giving myself away, could I? It would have ruined everything."

Sherlock tilts his head, staring at his brother. "You were enjoying it."

"Nonsense."

"Definitely. Enjoying it."

Mycroft complains about the inconvenient parts of going undercover and he glares at his brother for another moment. John would have done better at breaking him out. Molly would have done better. Probably the infant on the next block over would have managed better. Then he lets it go.

"I didn't know you spoke Serbian."

"I didn't, but the language has a Slavic root, frequent Turkish and German loan words." Mycroft shrugs, clearly proud of himself. "Took me a couple of hours."

"Hmm—you're slipping." The language had taken him about two hours, three less than Mycroft had taken.

His brother smiles thinly. "Middle age, brother mine. Comes to us all."

Anthea steps into the room with the timeliest interruption he's ever had the pleasure to witness. She's holding his coat and the rest of his suit, and he thinks, all of a sudden, that he's happy.

Mycroft convinces him not to try to see John and his old man mustache quite yet—apparently, he's bound for a beating from that one—and it doesn't take much more convincing and a bizarre plea in Mycroft's eye to tell him to see Molly. It's almost like Mycroft wants him to keep this goldfish, as he would say, in his life.

So he steps into St. Bart's Hospital, the site of his demise, to make his resurrection. It's almost lunchtime, which means that Molly will be at her locker, grabbing the sandwich and crisps she'd thrown in a bag on the way to work. She'll be wearing her lab coat and absentmindedly scrubbing at her hands to get the feeling of latex glove off her fingers. She'll—he doesn't have to imagine anymore.

He stands in the locker room just behind her, and he's about to call her name when she opens the little door and sees his reflection in the mirror she's glued inside. She whirls around and stares at him.

He only takes one step forward before she's flung herself into his arms. He's right about the pain and he thinks his doctor was wrong about his ribs being "only bruised, not broken." Admittedly, he'd only allowed the man a four minute check-up. He doesn't really care.

"When did you get back?" she whispers into his neck. They're sitting on the bench in the locker room, partially because it's more comfortable and partially because she could tell he was about to collapse. Hopefully she won't figure out the level of pain for a while yet, though.

Her hair smells exactly how he remembered it. "About five hours ago," he whispers back. "No one else knows."

"So Mycroft, Anthea, and maybe fifteen others know?" He nods. Close enough. She pulls back and stares at him, disbelief coloring her face. "What about _John_?"

"Mycroft told me to leave his reunion for later, said I was probably going to get a beating." He takes a breath and prepares for the first bit of complete honesty he's said in a year. "And I wanted to see you first."

Her cheeks burn with a faint pink tinge that he—somehow—falls in love with, and she leans forward, slowly and shyly, and kisses him. Home feels like her, and her embrace is completely worth the pain of his back.

"John is going to beat you up as well as he can," Molly murmurs when they break apart. "Please be careful, Sherlock. I know what you look like when you're in pain, and I'm fairly sure I don't want to know how much morphine you feel like taking."

"I promised my mum I'd stay sober, and morphine is equivalent," he replies, glibly not specifying the amount of pain medication he wants. The answer is a lot. So much. Molly smiles, and he doesn't stop himself from leaning forward and kissing her again.

Molly texts Mike Stamford and claims a family emergency. She takes him back to her flat and makes him lie down on his stomach so she can check his bandages and rewrap his ribs. He'd forgotten how much he missed her caring for him. He shakes his head to knock a few shelves loose in his mind palace when she's in the bathroom washing up. _Sentimentality_. He's straightening up his scant information on gardening and bees when she walks back in.

"Are you okay?" she asks once she helps him roll back over, panic clear in her voice.

He hums an affirmative, information back in place and wall reconstructed between himself and affection. She must have seen the dissociation in his eyes. He needs to work on getting that out of his expression.

"Why are you back, anyway? Is Moriarty—"

"Yes, the web is dismantled and Mycroft sent MI6 in to get the rest of the Serbian branch."

"So is it back to work with John on detective stuff?" Molly appears to be rearranging her sweater drawer in an effort to not look at him. He's not exactly eager for her to look at him—all he wants to do is pull her down onto the bed with him and sleep for a week, but he has to see John in a few hours and between now and then he wants to surprise Lestrade and perhaps Mrs. Hudson. And he has to get rid of this sentimentality, even though it's holding far closer than he would have dreamed.

"If he agrees, then yes. But Mycroft's making me work on a problem of his, something to do with terrorists." He waves his hand in dismissal. "Should be interesting."

"Have you heard much about John while you've been gone?" she asks, apparently stuck on the John topic.

He sighs loudly. "No, I've heard nothing. I only came back to London the one time, as you'll no doubt remember." He does his best to make his voice unaffected, but she steps to the bed and sits down next to him. Her soft smile is enough to make him lose the unaffected air he really needs to get back. He holds out a hand to her and she curls into his side. He sighs again. Such a beautiful distraction.

"He's been dating a woman, a Mary Morstan. I've only met her once, and I saw far more of her than I'd have liked." Sherlock smirks, the disgust and remembered shame in her voice clear. "John's face was hilarious, though, and it's his fault for forgetting we had lunch that day. Anyway, she's been really good for him."

She's avoiding something, hiding something. "What are you trying to say, Molly?"

"I don't know if John's going to want to get back into the detective world. Of course, he's an adrenaline junkie, and—and he'd love to go out with you again—not like that…" Molly buries her face in her hands for a moment. "But Mary's been pulling him more toward domesticity," she finishes.

"If you were to ask Mrs. Hudson, John and _I_ were in the heights of domesticity." Molly slaps his chest lightly and tries to say something else, but he interrupts by pulling her on top of him, kissing her without reservation. Sleep can wait. Loss of affection can wait.

One Molly Hooper, distracted from the topic of one lovesick John Watson, instead focused on him. Mission very much accomplished.

* * *

They're at the second restaurant, he and John and Mary Morstan, who is hiding something. But that's not quite important at the moment. He's rather lost count of the number of times he's seen murder in John's eyes.

"Oh, so it's your brother's plan?" John asks incredulously.

"Oh, he would have needed a confidant," Mary inserts. John looks at her with eyes wide, and it's amazing how quickly they've accomplished the conversation without words. "Sorry."

Mary appears somewhat embarrassed, and Sherlock can't stop his eyes from going back and forth between the couple.

"But he was the only one?" John continues, insisting. "The only one who knew?"

John is going to hate him. "Couple of others," he says reluctantly. "It was a very elaborate plan – it had to be. The next of the thirteen possibilities—"

"Who else?" John whispers. "Who else knew?" Sherlock hesitates for a minute. There's a possibility that he's about to destroy the friendship between the woman he—loves?—and his best friend, and really this isn't his story to tell. " _Who?_ " John demands.

"Molly."

" _Molly?_ " Oh yeah, that may take a bit of fixing.

"John…" Mary whispers.

"Molly Hooper—" the most important one of them all, really, in the end "—and some of my homeless network, and that's all."

"Okay." John sits up straighter, glances at Mary, and there's about to be a test, Sherlock knows it. "Okay. So just your brother, and Molly Hooper, and a hundred tramps."

At least this is something he can redeem himself with. "No! Twenty-five at most." And he must have failed the test, since John tries to beat him up again.

* * *

They're kicked out of that restaurant, and then the next one, and then he's watching John Watson ride away from him as the smell of blood permeates his nose. Ironic, considering that it's his own nose causing the pungent smell. This is not what he was expecting tonight. He wasn't really expecting John to come running into his arms—although that would have made Mrs. Hudson happy—but he was expecting some sort of happy surprise, not the violent encounter he received. His phone chirps.

 _How'd it go? M_

 **How did you know it was over? SH**

 _Intuition. And I figured if I was too early, you wouldn't look at the message yet. M_

 **My nose is still bleeding. The lip stopped bleeding about twenty minutes ago. SH**

If he were a different man, he would make several innuendos about that injury. But he's Sherlock Holmes, and she's Molly Hooper, and they don't have to say it. Or, at least, they won't.

 _Lestrade next? M_

 **Yes. SH**

 _Do you need help with the terrorist problem? I'm taking tomorrow off. M_

 **Mycroft and I are meeting about that tomorrow. Afterwards, would you like to come over? SH**

What has gotten into him? Sherlock stares at the text message and wishes he could take it back. Or at least explain better. But the three little dots have already appeared.

 _Okay :) M_

Somehow, the little smiley face in her text is enough to bring a smile back to his face, since the smile that Molly's presence had given him disappeared when John refused to recognize him. He really didn't know how he was going to keep doing this without John, without that tie to the side of the angels and unwavering friendship he'd always taken for granted.

Lestrade's reaction to seeing him alive ten minutes later is enough to make up for at least a little of John's anger.

Mrs. Hudson's piercing screeches—happy, she eventually clarifies—are still ringing in his ears the next morning.


End file.
